I'd Rather Be Reading

by Anne Bogel

  I’d like to add an addendum to Madeleine’s theory. Just as I’m all the ages I have been, I’m all the readers I have been.

  It’s taken me decades to figure out what kind of reader I am, and “what kind” is probably inaccurate: I’ve been many kinds of readers over the years, and I remember them fondly. (Sometimes I think I can imagine the readers I might yet be.) I’m the sum of all these bookish memories. My head is so full of musings and insights and ideas from books that I’m not sure who I would be or how I would think if they were all taken away.

  I’m still the three-year-old on my father’s knee, begging him to read The Story of the Apple or There’s a Monster at the End of This Book again and again. I’m still the eight-year-old who innocently filled her school reading sheet with over a hundred titles, unaware that the class average would be somewhere around thirty, and that this would bring her unwelcome special attention. (Thankfully, the pleasures of reading outweighed the discomfort.)

  I’m still the cautious ten-year-old sitting in the fifth-grade classroom listening to her teacher read aloud, who witnessed A Bridge to Terabithia unravel a classroom of thirty-three kids, leaving half of us sobbing and the other half futilely attempting to hide our tears.

  I’m still the eager tween who spent the firstfruits of her babysitting money on the newest installments of The Baby-Sitters Club series, and later, in the inevitable 1980s progression, the Sweet Valley High series, who thought a great book didn’t cost more than four dollars and didn’t take more than an afternoon to read. I’m still the thirteen-year-old middle schooler suffering through a run of competent but uninspiring Language Arts teachers, culminating in an in-depth study of the impenetrable Song of Roland in the spring of eighth grade.

  I’m still the earnest high school student writing her first term papers and feeling pleasantly grown up, trekking to the big library downtown for research on a Saturday morning, pulling her first Harold Bloom off the shelves, leaving her contacts behind in favor of her glasses, because wasn’t that what smart college girls did on the weekends? (I probably got that idea from a book.) I’m still the sixteen-year-old diving deep into The Great Gatsby, slightly put off by the strange title, surprising herself by not hating it, beginning to understand what a good writer could do with the written word and the depths of meaning hidden in plain sight behind billboards and lights and water.

  I’m still the nineteen-year-old college freshman goggling over her first Annie Dillard, Eudora Welty, and Isabel Allende, and struggling through David Hume and Erik Erikson and Friedrich Nietzsche (in German!), who must have read for fun sometimes but can’t remember what counted as fun back then. (I imagine paperbacks were involved.)

  I’m still the twentysomething inhaling spiritual memoirs as though her life depends on it, and maybe it did—churning through Madeleine and Dallas and Underhill and Lewis and Kathleen Norris and Eugene Peterson and Barbara Brown Taylor like they are oxygen.

  I’m still the twentysomething who doesn’t know how to vet contemporary fiction, the new releases filling the bookstore shelves that haven’t yet had the opportunity to stand the test of time, who somehow keeps finding her way to one modern lackluster title after another until—burned by too many disappointing modern works—she decides to reacquaint herself with the works that have endured: Jane Austen, Jane Eyre, Anna Karenina. (And thereby learning the timeless lesson that would serve me well in the years to come: if you’re looking for a great book, going old is never a terrible idea.)

  I’m still the young mother—twenty-five, twenty-six—reading Frog and Toad and Little Bear and Five Little Monkeys aloud on the couch to my firstborn, who, being too young to reliably hold up his own head, neither understands nor cares what I read him. But The Read-Aloud Handbook validates my desire to read to my tiny baby, so I do. I’m still the reader who knew Machines at Work and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by heart, from repetition. (To this day, I can’t stop myself from announcing mealtimes with, “Now, let’s eat lunch,” because I read those words so many times in Byron Barton’s board book. I am still this reader, even at lunchtime.)

  I’m still the thirty-year-old discovering the pleasures of returning over and over again to a good novel, the reader who learned that you don’t have to be a kid to read kid lit, who revisited Anne and Emily and Valancy, who indulged in the pleasures of filling the inexplicable gaps in her book-filled childhood, remedying the situation by speeding through all the Little House books, then the Betsy-Tacy books, and the Shoe series. Who blazed through all the Harry Potters in ten days, because they were that good.

  I’m still the thirty-five-year-old who has the house to herself and a zillion things to do and two hours to do it in, but spends the time in an uncomfortable kitchen chair, finishing Eleanor & Park because she has to find out what happens next, and because that discovery feels like enough of an accomplishment for one afternoon.

  And what of the reader I am today, now, reading for my own sake, because I love it, because it fuels me, and reading for and with the people I love? Reading books with ridiculous potty jokes because they delight my young children; reading books riddled with teen drama because those stories captivate my older kids. Reading a new-to-me author, falling in love, and binge reading everything she’s ever written in a week, just as I did when I was younger. Visiting the bookstore three times a week and perusing the “new fiction” table every time, even though the titles haven’t changed a whit, because I notice something a little bit different every time, and because a bookstore is full of nothing if not possibility. Still finding it hard to give up on any book with a catchy premise and great narrative drive, because I am still hooked on the story.

  As a devoted reader, I know what it means for books to shape you—the person you are, the person you were then. For readers, the great thing about getting older is that you don’t lose all the other readers you’ve been. Sometimes you think fondly of the readers you used to be; sometimes looking back makes you cringe a little. But they’re still here. They’re still you.

  12

  What I Need Is a Deadline

  On a gorgeous spring day, I was walking into the library, carrying a gigantic stack of books to return, when I bumped into a friend shouldering an equally formidable stack she’d just checked out.

  We laughed about our respective burdens, shifting our awkward loads from arm to arm, attempting to ease the encroaching ache. “We are ridiculous,” my friend said. “But is it really our fault? In a perfect world, there would be no due dates.”

  No due dates. What book lover could argue with that? I laughed, and agreed, and then we hurried in our respective directions to unburden ourselves—my friend, to deposit her books into her car, and me, to dump mine at the circulation desk before picking up another armful of reserves and starting the cycle all over again.

  As I came back out through those doors, weighed down by my fresh stack, I surveyed my library haul, feeling as accomplished as a long-ago hunter returning home with the makings of a feast and calculating how best to make use of my bounty. What was I reading now? What books sat on my nightstand at home? What new titles did I need to read, and when, to get through my stack before everything came due? I did my calculations, my friend’s words still ringing in my ears.

  No due dates. My, how that would change things. What would I do differently if the library wasn’t waiting on me? A lot, actually. And now that I’m thinking about it, I’m not sure I’d like it. If I didn’t need to get through my newly acquired stack before the due dates rolled around, would I read them as fast? Would I read them at all?

  I doubt it.

  Huh.

  It seems I wouldn’t read nearly as much, or as carefully, without my deadlines.

  Like many avid readers, my shelves are overflowing (literally, more often than not) with books I want to read. In his excellent book The Opposite of Spoiled, Ron Lieber defines “rich” as having everything you need and most of what you want—the essentials, and a lot more besides. He does not e
xplain how insatiable book lust fits into this scheme, but it does appear that when it comes to books, I am wealthy—incredibly so.

  My library holds an abundance of riches, and that’s just the beginning of my stores. My local bookstore’s shelves hold thousands of titles, and the clerks can track down almost anything I want. My friends would happily lend me books from their abundant collections. My own bookshelves could keep me happily busy for months, if not years: as of this moment, the shelves in my home library hold 114 books I want to read but haven’t yet—and that’s not counting the books scattered about the house, shelved in my office, stacked by my nightstand, hiding in my children’s rooms. The limitations on my reading choices are few.

  Oh, but the time! Admittedly, I’m a fast reader: my default speed tilts toward the higher end of the spectrum. And yet, even if I were to read one book every day, that’s just 365 books a year—an impressive statistic in a conversation about reading habits, but a mere fraction of the titles published in just a week. Even if I lived to be a healthy eighty years old, that’s still less than thirty thousand titles read in a lifetime—not a small number, but only a sliver of the titles published during that period. And what of all the books that came before?

  Choosing my next book sometimes feels like a complicated dance. With so many books to read, how can I possibly decide what to read? What to read now? What to read next? There are many factors to juggle, but I’ll tell you this: I agree with Duke Ellington, the jazz great who famously quipped, “I don’t need time. What I need is a deadline.”

  A deadline—apologies to my library patron friend—isn’t an obstacle to my reading life. (My fines might tell a different story, but never mind those.) In the face of overwhelming options, a deadline clarifies what I want to read right now. It focuses my attention on what I want to happen next. Just like a journalist who lives and dies by their deadline, a reading deadline ensures my books get read sooner, not later.

  I often tell myself I’ll get around to reading a certain book one day. But good intentions are worth only so much, and sometimes one day never comes. A good deadline forces me to ask myself if I’m ready to read it right now. (If I’m not, does it even belong on my To Be Read list?)

  As deadlines go, library due dates aren’t particularly frightening, but they still impose a clarifying framework on my stack of books to be read—especially if the book in question is an in-demand title I’ve waited months for. The library will deliver those requested titles to me, free of charge, but not without a price. Once they arrive, no matter when they come in, I have only three weeks to read them. If I’ve been waiting months for a popular book, I need to read it immediately or lose my chance. Long-awaited library books often become “urgent” items on my reading list, jumping ahead of books free of time constraints.

  Sometimes a social obligation keeps my reading on schedule. Book club is obvious—how many readers spend an entire month not reading, only to read two hundred pages in the twenty-four hours before book club? But coffee with a friend may be enough to get me to read a certain book, and fast. When I have a coffee date on my calendar, I want to show up having read the book a friend raved about the last time we saw each other, because I know she’s going to ask me about it. Sometimes I feel a pleasant kind of obligation to finish a certain title as quickly as possible because a friend is itching to borrow my copy, especially if it’s a new release. I believe in sharing the book love, and so I read—quickly.

  Even on vacation, a good deadline spurs me to read more: if I don’t finish at least half of the physical books I brought on vacation, I’ll feel like a failure (and my husband will tease me mercilessly).

  Lately, my kids inspire me to read more, and fast. When my child is reading a book and wants to talk about it right now . . . well, I want to talk about books with my kids, so I need to read it. Now. My daughter knows my taste in literature pretty well. She’ll often finish a book and say, “Mom, you have to read this”—and press it into my hands. She’ll then proceed to ask me daily if I’ve read that book yet, the one she adored and thinks I will too.

  It hurts my children’s feelings not to read what they want me to read, and so I do, on deadline. Duke Ellington understands: “Without a deadline, baby, I wouldn’t do nothing.” Without a deadline, Duke, I wouldn’t do nothing—but I wouldn’t read as much either. And, baby, I love to read.

  13

  Keep Reading

  As a reader who will surely die with thousands of unread books on her To Be Read list, I’m not keen on reading extra words—those pages in the book that aren’t part of the text. I tend to greet a critic’s introduction to a new classic edition with skepticism, and even an author’s note at the front of a reprint may not seem worth the ink. Perhaps that introduction is filler, and I can skip straight to chapter one. If it isn’t strictly part of the narrative, I don’t need to read it, right? For many, many years, I happily counted the author’s acknowledgments as extra, skipping right over them, grateful that I could move on to the next book a little more quickly.

  I wish I could pinpoint the exact moment I first decided to take time to read the author’s extra notes at the end of the book. What book prompted me to keep turning its pages instead of moving straight to the next book? What did that author say? Who did they thank, and why did their words hook me? I wish I could remember what they said that charmed me—because charm they did. I’m still more likely than not to skip over a critic’s introduction to the twentieth anniversary edition of a book, but I no longer skip the acknowledgments. And I don’t just read them—I read them first, before I read anything else in the pages. And then, if they’re good, I’ll probably read them again. And again and again, just to myself, or out loud to whoever is around to listen.

  That is, if they’re good. The best acknowledgments are endearing and entertaining, witty and wise, short but not too short, sweet but not sappy. They’re funny, or strange, or surprising. They’re personal and positive. You can tell a lot about a person by who they choose to thank, and how, and for what; in the best acknowledgments, their gratitude spills off the page.

  I may not want to spend my precious time reading extra words, but I’ll always make time to read a few more pages of behind-the-scenes scoop—especially when it’s coming straight from the author. Now that I’ve seen the light, I deeply regret not reading acknowledgments in books before, because so many times the authors’ acknowledgments have deepened my appreciation for and understanding of the story.

  In A Deeper Darkness, J. T. Ellison describes the friendly fire wartime incident that inspired the plot of her military mystery. In A Great Reckoning, Louise Penny speaks of her husband’s dementia and the enormous kindness they’ve encountered since his diagnosis, as well as her gratitude for those whose help enabled her to go into her living room, open her laptop, and spend time in the company of her other friends—the characters in her book. In Seabiscuit, Laura Hillenbrand explains how writing her book had been “a four-year lesson in how history hides in curious places.” She tells readers how after exhausting the expected sources for her research—newspaper archives, magazines, racing histories—she turned to the unconventional, going as far as placing “information wanted” ads and making calls to hundreds of strangers in her search for untold stories about her subjects.

  In these pages, I’ve discovered who came up with a book’s title or central idea or championed the inclusion of a certain chapter. In In the Midst of Winter, Isabel Allende explains that she didn’t know what to write about, so certain friends brainstormed the ideas that became the book’s skeleton. (She also reveals she always starts her books on January 8.) In Station Eleven, Emily St. John Mandel acknowledges her debt of inspiration to the Daily Mail article that inspired the chapters of her book set in Malaysia. In Love and First Sight, a young adult novel my whole family loved, Josh Sundquist thanks his agent for playing matchmaker with two of his characters, giving his novel the love story it was missing.

  Sometimes the acknowled
gments hint at how the book in my hands almost didn’t come to be, or at the improbable circumstances that led to its publication. In The Things We Wish Were True, Marybeth Whalen thanks her agent, who “called late one Tuesday night and told me not to give up, and then didn’t give up, either.” In Four Seasons in Rome, Anthony Doerr thanks the publishing professional “who convinced me my notebooks might be worth transforming into a book.” In Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand, Helen Simonson begins her acknowledgments with the origin story of her literary career: “A long time ago, a stay-at-home mother in Brooklyn, who missed her busy advertising job, stumbled into a writing class at New York’s 92nd Street Y looking for a creative outlet.”

  From the acknowledgments we learn the details it was important the author get right: what it’s like to live in a certain place or time or to hold a certain occupation, or what the finer points of a theory are. In Empire Falls, Richard Russo thanks his daughter Kate “for reminding me by means of concrete detail just how horrible high school can be, and how lucky we all are to escape more or less intact.” In A God in Ruins, Kate Atkinson thanks the director of the Yorkshire Air Museum, “who answered my (probably annoying) questions so fully.” In Dark Matter, Blake Crouch thanks the physics and astronomy professor who “helped me not to look like a total idiot in discussing the broad-stroke concepts of quantum mechanics.”

  In the acknowledgments, you see time and again who had their hands in the story, how it takes not just an author but a proverbial village to bring a book to life. (Julie Buxbaum kicks off her What to Say Next acknowledgments with a joke: if you didn’t like her novel, here are all the other people you can blame.)